Scientists Trap Light Inside a Magnet

A groundbreaking study conducted by Vinod M. Menon and his team at The City College of New York reveals that trapping light within magnetic materials can significantly boost their intrinsic properties. These heightened optical reactions in magnets pave the way for innovations in magnetic lasers, magneto-optical memory devices, and even in emerging quantum transduction applications.

As detailed in their new article published on August 16 in the journal Nature, Menon, and his team investigated the properties of a layered magnet that hosts strongly bound excitons - quasiparticles with particularly strong optical interactions. Because of that, the material is capable of trapping light - all by itself. As their experiments show, the optical responses of this material to magnetic phenomena are orders of magnitude stronger than those in typical magnets.